Jochen Klepper wrote this hymn on December 18, 1937, in a Berlin already darkening under the Third Reich. Married to a Jewish wife, Klepper lived under mounting persecution and, in his final years, under crushing insomnia and spiritual affliction; night, for him, was no passing metaphor. He set his text, Die Nacht ist vorgedrungen, beneath the words of Romans 13:11–12, the traditional Epistle for Advent’s first Sunday, and drew his opening line almost word for word from Luther’s own translation of that verse, “the night is far gone, the day is at hand.” The hymn moves from Genesis 3:15’s ancient promise of mercy through Christ’s bearing of judgment to John the Baptist’s witness of the Lamb, closing on the dawn of the new creation still to come. Herman G. Stuempfle Jr. supplied the present English translation for Hymnal Supplement 98 after earlier attempts failed to hold Klepper’s tight German meter, and Lutheran Service Book sets his five stanzas to the sturdy Welsh tune LLANGLOFFAN. Written by a man who knew personally how long the night could feel, it fits its place as the Hymn of the Day, standing exactly where Advent’s watchfulness meets Advent’s hope.
Sung at Our Saviour
2025